Following the initial announcement, Musk unleashed a barrage of details on the Raptor engine via his favorite social media platform. Among other things, he explained that SpaceX wants the Raptor to reach three million Newtons of force. As Ars notes, if the company is successful with that goal, the Raptor would be three times more powerful than SpaceX's current engine, the Merlin 1-D. The space travel company uses nine of those to launch the Falcon 9 rocket into the sky; it is unclear how many Raptors might be needed to push SpaceX's next-gen rocket to Mars.

Expect more details on this rocket and the actual vehicle that SpaceX is designing to travel to Mars during Musk's speech tomorrow.

Those are some damn beautiful flames. That said, we think we'll keep our safe distance and enjoy the view from behind our keyboards. That exhaust looks awfully hot.